


love is brightest in the dark

by spellingmynamewrong



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Alternate Universe - Avatar (TV) Fusion, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Inspired by Avatar: The Last Airbender, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:09:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26318470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spellingmynamewrong/pseuds/spellingmynamewrong
Summary: “That’s the Avatar!” Sev hisses. “Just look at him.”“Sev, the Avatar has been gone for a hundred years. This is a teenage boy,” Lily says patiently. A particularly idiotic teenage boy.“Well, now we know why he’s been gone for a hundred years, don’t we? Lily, why would an earthbender have a flying bison? Think about what we know. The last cycle of the Avatar ended with earth. The Avatar disappeared while he was learning airbending at the Southern Air Temple. It all makes sense.”“Sev, it doesn’t, because—”The boy blinks his eyes open, and a large grin spreads over his face. “Hi,” the boy says, still grinning. “I’m James, and your friend is right. I’m the Avatar!”
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26





	love is brightest in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> the title is taken from the second episode of season two of avatar: the last airbender, "the cave of two lovers."

**i. the exiled prince**

Look, it’s not like Sirius _wanted_ to be banished.

Okay, fine, he kind of did. But it wasn’t like he went _into_ that meeting with the intention of upsetting his father’s generals and instigating an Agni Kai. And it wasn’t like he knew that he would be fighting against his father. And it wasn’t like he knew that his father would give him a scar across his face for his troubles and banish him until he returned with the Avatar. 

Still, Sirius isn’t complaining. Honestly? This is _fantastic._ He gets a fucking boat, and a crew, and has literally been told to just fuck off to wherever he wants to go in the entire world. That sounds pretty sweet to him.

Except there’s Regulus. And Regulus wasn’t supposed to be part of this at all. Regulus, who’s standing on the docks with him right now, carrying an enormous bag with a smile on his face. 

“And I told him that this would be a great chance for me to learn responsibility, so I managed to convince our father to let me keep you company on your journey!” Regulus finishes, having explained to Sirius his frankly idiotic idea of coming along with him on this wild goose chase for the Avatar, apparently under the impression that Sirius actually _wants_ to find the Avatar.

When Sirius was banished, the first thing he thought was that at least his father would have a son who actually wanted to be the Fire Lord one day. Regulus has always been the good, dutiful child, who’s been able to firebend since he was five and is frankly too polite to even be human. Apparently, though, his brother is also _infuriatingly_ loyal. The only part of this that doesn’t make sense is why his father would even let Regulus leave. 

Maybe his mother’s pregnant again. That’s the only explanation he can come up with.

“Reg, it’s not going to be like you think it is,” Sirius tries to explain. He can’t exactly tell his brother to his face that he has no intention of actually finding the Avatar, though, so he settles for the next best reason. “The Avatar hasn’t been seen for a hundred years. Father just wants to get rid of me once and for all.”

“That’s not true!” Regulus says, stomping his foot and looking far younger than eleven. “Father cares about you. He cares about _us._ He just wants the best for you, Sirius. He always has.”

Sirius has to bite back a laugh. The earnestness on his brother’s face is almost too much to bear, though. “Fine. You can come with me. Just don’t complain when _both_ of us are exiled forever, okay?”

**ii. the avatar**

“Sev, you can be such an asshole sometimes, you know?” Lily puts her hands on her hips and looks down at her best friend, who’s snickering as he almost strikes a tiny polar bear dog with lightning. “He’s not even trying to hurt us.”

“Come on, Lily, I didn’t hit him,” Sev says, rolling his eyes. “It’s just a bit of fun.”

“Well, he looks terrified, the poor thing,” she says. “He’s not a threat at all. He’s just a baby.”

Sev sighs. “What, should I tell him I’m sorry?”

“Yes.”

Sev crouches down, looking as though the mere action pains him. “I’m sorry for almost hitting you, unnamed polar bear dog. Are you happy now, Lily?”

“Yes.” She pointedly avoids Sev’s gaze as they walk forward, the snow crunching under their feet. In front of them is the water, and Lily places down the canoe gently. She sighs. Lately, Sev has been—distant. Ever since the Fire Prince was banished, he’s become even more fixated on coming to the Fire Lord’s attention, becoming a favored confidant. And he’s been talking about finding the Avatar before the Fire Prince can, even though everyone knows that the Avatar’s been gone for a hundred years already, and if anyone can find him, it will be Prince Sirius, who’s been equipped with weapons and a crew of men. 

They steer the canoe silently across the still waters, peering down into the murky depths. For barely a minute, Lily zones out, and then, Sev is shouting her name.

“What did you do?” he asks desperately, and she realizes that she’s just steered their way into a rip current. 

“Try paddling the other way!” she calls, but it’s useless. A moment later, she watches helplessly as they crash into a sheet of ice and are knocked out of their now-broken canoe.

“Great,” Sev says sarcastically. “We’re stranded in the middle of nowhere.”

“It was an accident!” Lily protests, clenching her fists. “You should have warned me.”

“I tried to. You weren’t listening,” Sev snaps. Lily feels anger boil up in her veins, and she wills herself to not start shouting at him, because he doesn’t deserve that, even if he’s been snippy and cruel all day, and—

_Crack._

“What was that?” Sev whirls around. “Lily, what did you _do?”_

In front of them, an iceberg is splitting. At first, it looks as though it’ll hold anyway, despite the crack, but then the top seems to almost explode, shards of ice flying out. She holds her breath, and thankfully, nothing else breaks.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” she says weakly. “Look, everything’s going to be fine—”

“Lily?”

“What, Sev?”

“You might want to look that way.” He points to the water, where a large sphere of ice has emerged to the surface. And then it keeps rising. She narrows her eyes, looking closer. “Sev, someone—two someones—are _trapped_ in there. Give me your sword.”

“What?” Sev clutches his broadsword closer to his body, as though he’s afraid she’ll snatch it from his hands. Lily rolls her eyes.

“Just for a minute,” she clarifies. “I’m going to break whoever’s in there out. You’ll barely even notice it’s gone.”

“Fine,” Sev sighs, handing her his sword. Lily steps forward, clutching the sword in her hand, and brings it down onto the sphere of ice. It starts to crack, at first painfully slowly, but then her next blow causes the ice to splinter and a great gush of wind to push back both her and Sev. And then there’s the light—a great beam of blinding white light that shoots up towards the heavens.

“Lily, do you know what that means?” Sev asks, staring up in awe. “Only someone extraordinarily powerful could have made that light come out. Lily, it’s the Avatar.”

“Don’t be silly, Sev,” Lily scoffs, but she can’t stop the doubt from seeping through her voice. “It’s not the Avatar. Just some poor boy trapped in the ice.” 

_No ordinary boy could have survived that,_ an annoying voice in her head says. She ignores it, walking closer to the now-destroyed iceberg and the boy.

The boy is dressed in the clothes of the Earth Kingdom, but he has by his side what looks to be a flying bison, except—those have all been wiped out by the Fire Nation, haven’t they? He looks to be around her age, maybe sixteen or seventeen. He’s as still as a statue, but his skin is slowly warming to the touch. 

And then he opens his eyes. “Beautiful,” he croaks out, and then collapses onto her lap. 

Involuntarily, a fierce blush spreads over her cheeks. 

“That’s the Avatar!” Sev hisses again. “Just look at him.”

“Sev, the Avatar has been gone for a hundred years. This is a teenage boy.” A particularly idiotic teenage boy. 

“Well, now we know _why_ he’s been gone for a hundred years, don’t we? Lily, why would an _e_ _arthbender_ have a flying bison? Think about what we know. The last cycle of the Avatar ended with earth. The Avatar disappeared while he was learning airbending at the Southern Air Temple. It all makes sense.”

“Sev, no it doesn’t, because—”

The boy blinks his eyes open, and a large grin spreads over his face. “Hi,” the boy says, still grinning. “I’m James, and your friend is right. I’m the Avatar!” 

And then all hell breaks loose.

Sev grabs his sword back from Lily, so quickly that she barely even has time to react, and presses it to the throat of the boy—James. “Don’t move,” he hisses. 

“Sev, what the fuck?” 

“Lily, he’s the Avatar. If we can bring him to the Fire Lord, we’ll be famous. We’ll do what _Prince Sirius_ couldn’t. We’ll have all the power we’ve ever wanted,” Sev says, a gleam in his eyes.

“Are you forgetting, Sev, that the Fire Nation killed my mother and took my father to the war? That my home has been _destroyed_ by them, taken over by your people?” Lily snaps. _“You’ll_ be famous, Sev, not me. The Fire Nation would imprison me in an instant if it could. The only reason they haven’t is _you._ I’m not like you, Sev. I’m not a firebender, and I can’t be one.”

“But if we gave Fire Lord Orion the Avatar—”

“He would still hate me! He would still hate my people! The only person this would help is _you.”_

“Lily, just listen to me!”

“No, Sev, you listen to me. I’m not going to help you with whatever hare-brained scheme you’ve cooked up. If James is the Avatar, we should be helping him, not trying to get him _killed._ He’s the only person who can restore balance to our world.”

“I think you should listen to your friend, _Sev,”_ James says, a cocky smile on his face. He winks at Lily. She determinedly refuses to blush again. He pushes Sev’s sword off his throat easily and steps closer to Sev. “You’re right. I’m the Avatar, and I keep the balance of the world intact, so don’t you want to help me?”

She sees the moment when Sev explodes. He sheathes his sword, and lightning burst out of his fingertips, his dark hair threatening to come loose from its ponytail. “Listen, _Avatar,_ the world doesn’t revolve around you. Who’s armed here, hm? Is it you, or is it me?” 

“Sev!”

Lightning strikes the ice near James, but James just dances away, a look of glee on his face. “You might have a sword, but I’m the Avatar, remember?” A gust of air hits Sev square in the chest, so quickly that Lily barely has time to react, and he falls back onto the ice, an obvious look of pain on his face. 

But he gets back up quickly, and now fire is whirling, blazing rings coming far too close to James for comfort. James sends back blasts of air, and quickly, they’re locked in a dangerous dance, the two elements feeding on each other.

“Stop it!” Lily brings up a sheet of ice between the two boys, panting heavily. “Please. Stop it.”

“Lily—”

“My princess—”

“Both of you, shut up,” Lily says. “And I mean _both_ of you. Look, James, I want to help you. I’m sure you’re confused about what’s going on—”

“Uh, yeah, of course I am.”

“And I’m sorry you had to find out this way. James, you’ve been—well, gone—for a hundred years. After you disappeared, the Fire Nation declared war on the other nations. It—it destroyed the Air Nomads after no one could give any information about what happened to you, and it took over a lot of Earth Kingdom cities too. Almost all of them, besides Ba Sing Se and a few others. I’m so sorry,” Lily says, studying his face. She’s not quite sure how she expects him to react. Whatever she did, though, it wasn’t for him to laugh.

“You’re joking,” he says, smiling. “A hundred years? Really?”

“Don’t laugh at Lily!” And there’s Sev. “Don’t you dare.”

“I’m not,” Lily says grimly. “Our world is in grave danger. We have to move quickly—everyone knows that the Fire Lord’s son is searching for you, and if he gets hold of you—well, that would be really, really bad.”

“Prince Sirius isn’t going to find him,” Sev says, a dark look in his eyes. “He’s not going to have a chance to.” Daggers of fire shoot from his fingertips, and this time, James barely has time to dodge.

“What is _wrong_ with you, Sev?”

“You don’t understand!” Sev says, his eyes wild. “Lily, this is my _chance._ We’ve spent our entire lives in this stupid little village. Nothing ever changes. If we can give the Fire Lord the Avatar, we can do anything.”

“I’m never going to help the Fire Nation,” Lily replies. “Sev, I don’t want to fight you. Please. Don’t make me do it.”

For an instant, Sev drops his hands. And then, mere seconds later, she’s scooped up by James onto the flying bison. “Hold on tight, now. Prongs, yip yip!” And then they’re up in the air, flying higher and higher and higher, and she looks at James, gaping.

“What the fuck?” 

“Well, we had to get out of there somehow,” James says, shrugging. 

“You just left Sev behind! You stranded him on the ice!”

“Well, it didn’t seem like that conversation was going to get productive anytime soon,” James reasons. “We had to get out of there somehow.”

“Sev’s my friend!”

“Well, he was trying to capture me! Now, do you want to tell me what actually happened? And where _are_ we?”

**iii. lily's tale**

“When you disappeared—” Lily starts, and then stops. How do you explain to someone who’s been gone for a hundred years that their world has been irrevocably changed, almost destroyed, in just a century? And should she sugarcoat it, or should she just be as honest as possible? She takes a deep breath. “How much do you want to know?”

“Everything,” James says. In the darkness of the damp cave they’ve taken refuge in for the night, his face lit up only by the light from their campfire, he looks more serious than he has all day. “Just—tell me everything.”

“Okay. Like I said before when you didn’t _believe_ me, soon after you disappeared, Sozin’s Comet arrived and the Fire Nation attacked the Air Nomads. I think they knew you were learning airbending, and I guess they thought they would find you at one of the temples. They wanted to break the Avatar Cycle so the Fire Nation would have total victory, but—”

“But I wasn’t at the temple anymore,” James finishes softly. “What did they do?”

“They—” 

“Tell me.”

“They did terrible things. To the best of my knowledge, there aren’t any airbenders left. Not in the entire world.”

“What?” James looks incredulous. “You’re joking.”

“I’m sorry, James. I’m not.” 

James stands up, pacing around the cave. “How could they do that? How could they just—wipe out an entire culture like that?”

“They did it to the Earth Kingdom too,” Lily says grimly, and James looks over at her, his eyes pleading and full of pain. “Or they tried to, at least. After they realized you weren’t with the airbenders, they turned their attention to the earthbenders.”

“Tell me they didn’t get to Ba Sing Se,” James says, his fists clenched. “My family—”

“They didn’t manage to breach the walls. The current Fire Lord’s brother got really close to doing it—he besieged the city for six hundred days—but he failed in the end. But they rounded up everyone else. They killed or imprisoned all the earthbenders who weren’t in Ba Sing Se.”

“So I might be one of the only earthbenders left,” James realizes. His eyes are welling up with tears. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Tell me the rest. Please.”

“The Fire Nation didn’t try to attack Ba Sing Se again. I guess they figured, or maybe they hoped, that they’d managed to kill you, since, well, you weren’t anywhere. They turned their attention to the water tribes instead. They came to the Southern Water Tribe when I was six,” Lily recalls. “They rounded up all the waterbenders. Or, almost all of them. When they discovered I—” Here, her voice breaks off, and involuntarily, her hand reaches for the carved pendant around her neck. 

“When they discovered I was a waterbender,” Lily continues, her voice trembling, “I was terrified. The soldiers ransacked my home. But when they came to take me away—my mother tried to defend me. She died doing that.” 

She reaches for her necklace again, holding it up so James can see. “This necklace is all I have left of her. My father went off to war against the Fire Nation a few months later, and my sister—my sister got married. She started her own family. Sev grew up with me—his father was part of the Fire Nation army that was stationed in the South Pole, and his mother was a member of our tribe. She died when he was really little, though. Sev always protected me from the soldiers, even though his father was one too. He was the only one—the only one who didn’t make me feel wrong for being a waterbender, after the Fire Nation took over our home, even though he’s a firebender himself, and a really powerful one too. So that’s it. I’m the only waterbender left in the entire Southern Water Tribe.”

“That’s not right,” James says fiercely. “That’s not right at all. None—none of what the Fire Nation did is right.”

“It’s not,” Lily concurs softly. “Sev taught me how to bend, kind of. But I’ve never really had a proper teacher or anything.”

“We’ll find one,” James promises, a determined set to his chin. “Are there any waterbenders, well, anywhere else?”

“At the North Pole,” Lily replies. “The Northern Water Tribe hasn’t been attacked by the Fire Nation yet, to the best of my knowledge.”

“Well, we’ll go there then!” James declares, smiling. “Prongs can take us.” He pats his flying bison, who keens under his touch. 

“What about you?” Lily asks. “Do you remember what happened? Before you disappeared?”

“I—” James frowns. “Kind of. I was at the Southern Air Temple before. When I was sixteen, my parents told me I was the Avatar. We lived in Ba Sing Se back then. They sent me to the temple to learn airbending—one of their friends was an Airbending Master there. But I don’t remember much else.”

“Maybe we should go to the Southern Air Temple then,” Lily says. “Maybe visiting it will jog your memory?”

“That sounds good,” James smiles. Soon afterwards, he’s fast asleep. It’s only in the morning that Lily begins to wonder just what they’ll find at the Southern Air Temple.

**iv. the southern air temple, or, the tale of avatar james**

The answer is. Well. The answer is, in short, devastation.

James walks around the temple, barely suppressed rage and sadness on his face. “How could they do this?” he asks, touching his hand to a ripped tapestry. “Everything’s gone. Everything’s _gone.”_

“I don’t know, James,” Lily says softly, her hand on his shoulder. 

They make their way into a smaller room, one filled with dust and cobwebs. But even through the dust, the sight of the bodies of firebenders lining the floor, one after another, is unmistakable. And in the corner, four more skeletons, dressed in the robes of airbenders. Involuntarily, a gasp escapes from her mouth.

James walks closer to one body, as if in a trance. And then, suddenly, he falls to his knees and sobs, wracking tears that make his whole body shake with force. 

“James?” Lily steps closer to him and bends down to match his height. “I’m so sorry you had to see this. Do you want to—”

James turns around. His eyes are glowing now, a blinding white that makes her stumble backwards, terrified and astonished. Around him, a cyclone of whirling dust and earth has formed, an expanding tornado that’s shaking the ground around him. 

She swallows hard. She needs to find a way to snap him out of this. Struggling, she staggers towards him, but she doesn’t take more than two steps until she’s thrown back again as James rises on top of the tornado of earth, his eyes still glowing.

“James, please snap out of it!” she begs. She tries, futilely, to step closer to him, but almost instantly, she’s thrown back again. “James, I know how you feel. I know how terrible this must be. When my mother died—when she died, I was so _angry._ And then my father left, and my sister left too, and I was so, so alone.”

He keeps rising, and she swallows hard, continuing. “I know it’s not the same thing, and I won’t pretend that it is, but please. Please listen to me. I know how hopeless it feels. James, please.”

And somehow, almost miraculously, it works. The storm of dust begins to die down, and James falls back down to his knees, the choked sob still caught in his throat.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice broken. “Lily, I’m so sorry for scaring you.”

“Don’t be,” Lily says softly. “Do—do you want to talk about this?”

James swallows. “Yeah. I think—I think I’d like that.”

They find their way onto a pavilion, empty but for a broken pot in the corner. Sitting down side-by-side, James begins.

“When I was sixteen, a man came to my home in Ba Sing Se,” he says. “He introduced himself as an Earthbending Master, and he told me I was the Avatar. He said that he’d met me when I was just a baby, and they performed a ritual which told him that I was the Avatar, and now that I was sixteen, I needed to know my duty. I had to master all four elements, which would help me maintain balance in the world.”

“My parents were thrilled, of course,” James continues. “They urged me to go off and learn. They had a close friend who was an Airbending Master at the Southern Air Temple, so that’s where they sent me first. Here. They told me to come back home when I’d finished learning everything.” Here, he smiles sadly. “That’s the weirdest thing about all of this, I think. For them, it must have been so long since they last saw me, but it only feels like a few months to me. Do you think—do you think they could still be living in Ba Sing Se?”

“Maybe,” Lily lies. In truth, she doesn’t see any way for his parents to still be alive, not after a hundred years, and she has a feeling that he knows that too. 

“We should go there then,” James says. “After we’ve gone to the North Pole and found us a waterbending teacher.”

“That sounds good,” Lily says weakly.

“Anyway, when I came here, I wasn’t supposed to befriend any of the other pupils. My first duty was to learn, after all, but—I was so _bored._ I tried to make friends with almost everyone, but most people found me intimidating, I guess.”

“You? _Intimidating?”_ Lily snorts.

“Hey!” James protests. “I’m the Avatar. I could be so intimidating if I wanted to be—I mean, sorry.” He winces, probably recalling the strange, terrifying trance he’d gone into merely an hour ago. “Anyway, most people ignored me, except for one person. Peter.” He smiles wistfully. “Peter was around my age. His robes never fit quite right, and he wasn’t that good at airbending, but he worked hard, and he hung out with me all the time, which was more than I could say about anyone else. He gave me Prongs, actually—Prongs was the brother of his own flying bison, Wormtail.”

“Why did you choose _those_ names?”

James shrugs. “Dunno. They sounded funny, I guess.”

“Wow.”

James sniffs. “They’re perfectly good names, Lily. Anyway, he was my best friend the entire time I was at the Southern Air Temple. But then—” He stops, taking deep breaths. He hugs his knees, looking as though every word is painful.

“What happened?” Lily asks softly.

“One of the Airbending Masters, who was really strict, found out about our friendship. He told Peter he wasn’t to disturb me, and Peter—Peter listened. When I found out, I got so _angry._ I shouted at him, but he didn’t even react. He just smiled sadly and told me this was how it had to be. So I left the Southern Air Temple. I couldn’t stay there anymore—I just couldn’t, and I told myself that I knew enough airbending already anyway. I flew away on Prongs, and that’s—that’s the last thing I remember.”

“Was Peter one of the—” She can’t even make herself say the words.

“He was,” James confirms, his mouth set in a grim line. “I recognized him by the cut of his robes. I just—I can’t believe he’s _gone._ Just a few days ago for me, I was talking to him, and now he’s _dead.”_

“I’m so sorry,” she says. And then, because it feels right, she wraps her arms around James and hugs him tightly, breathing in the warmth of his green robes.

They sit in silence for a while, feeling the steadiness of the earth beneath their feet, until they hear something that sounds like a vase breaking.

“Do you think it’s—” James asks, but Lily shakes her head.

“No one knows you’re back,” she says firmly. “Besides, Sev wouldn’t _really_ tell the Fire Nation about you.”

“He had a sword to my throat yesterday.”

“He wouldn’t. And everyone knows that the only other person who even thinks the Avatar might be alive is Prince Sirius, who’s been looking for you for three years and doesn’t seem to be very good at it,” Lily says disdainfully. “It’s probably just the wind.”

Another crash. James narrows his eyes and stands up, brushing off his robes. “I’m going to make sure anyway.”

Lily sighs, but she follows him out of the pavilion, around a corner, and into a dark room. She can see the outline of a long shadow, and she swallows, telling herself there’s nothing to worry about. Still, she looks around the room for a source of water, just in case.

A whimper, and she jerks her head around to find—

A winged lemur. James gasps in audible delight. “Oh, he’s so cute, Lily, look!”

“I thought there weren’t any of those left,” Lily says, dumbfounded. 

James rolls his eyes. “You also thought I was dead until yesterday.” He scoops up the winged lemur, cuddling it and cooing. It’s sickeningly adorable. “We should take him with us.”

“To the North Pole?”

“Well, where else? Poor little guy—his family’s all gone. Come on, Lily.” He looks at her with big, pleading eyes, and she sighs.

“Sure,” she says. “What’re we naming him?”

James smiles, a small one tinged with sadness. “I’m thinking Wormtail.”

**v. the return of the avatar, or, sirius's three-year-vacation comes to an end**

The statue of Avatar Dumbledore on Crescent Island has not changed in more than a hundred years. The Fire Sages do their work dutifully, day in and day out, but for the most part, their lives are the same every day. They maintain the temple, ensure that the coating of dust over the bodies of statues never gets too thick, and answer when called by the Fire Lord.

And then, one afternoon, the eyes on the Statue of Avatar Dumbledore begin to glow.

“The Avatar has returned,” one astounded Sage breathes out, and soon, everyone in the Fire Temple knows it—the Avatar is back, and whoever they are, they hold immense power.

The Fire Lord, when he learns of this from the Fire Sages, is angry—no, enraged. He spends days stalking down the long halls of the royal palace, screaming at generals and terrifying servants. 

Finally, he makes a decision. “Send these missives to Admiral Malfoy and my sons,” he says, sneering at a terrified courier. “Let them know of their new duties. Tell them that the Avatar has returned.”

Admiral Malfoy, a man with long hair and cruel eyes, is delighted when he receives his new mission. He lets out a long, wicked, deeply pleased laugh upon hearing the news of his promotion and instructions.

Sirius, on the other hand?

Unhappy would be an understatement. When the letter arrives, he laughs too, but an incredulous, short laugh, blinking rapidly in disbelief. “The Avatar is back? What kind of bullshit is Father trying to pull on us?”

“It’s true!” Regulus says eagerly. “Everyone’s been talking about it. I heard it in the last town we docked in too.”

Sirius rolls his eyes. “You know that it could be an imposter, right? How many times have you told me that you’ve heard rumors of the Avatar returning, and then it turned out to be someone dressed up _like_ the Avatar for a festival?”

“It has to be true,” Regulus insists. “It’s got Father’s seal. Don’t you see, Sirius? We can finally fulfill our duty! We can find and capture the Avatar, and we can prove to Father that you’re worthy of the throne and assure his victory in battle!”

But Sirius doesn’t _want_ to fulfill his duty. He doesn’t want to be worthy of the throne, and he doesn’t want to see the Fire Nation conquer and destroy the rest of the world like they did to the Air Nomads and most of the Earth Kingdom. He doesn’t want even more death and destruction to be unleashed upon the world. 

But at the same time, he can’t tell Regulus that they shouldn’t go looking for the Avatar, because that would be saying out loud what he’s secretly believed for the past three years—that it’s better to not be part of his Father’s family and the Fire Nation at all, that they’re better off visiting random towns, sampling sweets and teas, and living their lives without fear. 

“Fine,” he says, an idea popping into his head. “We’ll search for the Avatar.” Badly, of course, taking on every dead end and bumbling through even more quaint little towns where the Avatar certainly has never even laid foot in, but searching nonetheless. 

Regulus grins, and somehow, despite everything, Sirius manages to grin back.

**vi. a waterbending lesson and prince sirius**

James doesn’t want to admit it, but now that he’s visited the Spirit World and Avatar Dumbledore’s told him of his quest—mastering waterbending and firebending in less than a _year_ to save the entire world from the Fire Lord—he feels kind of out of his element.

Ha. Element.

But it’s weird, knowing that it’s up to basically him and Lily to save the world. It sounds like one of those myths his parents told him as a kid when he thought he could do anything, but now it’s real life. It’s less fun than he thought it would be. 

Especially since he still doesn’t really have a clue how to waterbend. Lily’s been teaching him the basics, but her waterbending style isn’t particularly traditional—it’s almost as though she’s moving the water with sheer power, short bursts of strength that are more reminiscent of firebending than anything else—and though it works for her, James can’t mimic it, no matter how hard he tries to. To be honest, it’s kind of disheartening, since he managed to pick up airbending in less than a month, and waterbending just isn’t coming to him at all. 

So when they dock in a town and come across some dubiously ethical merchants selling a waterbending scroll, well, can you really blame James for sneaking the scroll out of the ship? It’s not really stealing, anyway—after all, it wasn’t like the scroll _belonged_ to the merchant-pirates in the first place. He rolls his eyes at Lily’s lecture after she finds out what he’s done.

“Look, Lily, I have to learn _somehow,”_ he says. “Besides, we’ve still got some time before we reach the North Pole—you can learn from the scroll too!” He knows how much Lily’s been dying to explore more advanced waterbending techniques, but she just huffs.

“Pirates have no allegiance to anyone, and they’re ruthless too,” she says. “If anyone spotted you, we’re just in even more danger.”

“No one spotted me, Lily, don’t worry,” he says, grinning. “I can be sneaky!”

And then, two hours later, when it’s nearing sundown and he’s waterbending in a stream—and okay, he finally understands _why_ Lily’s methods didn’t work for him, because she wasn’t working from any existing techniques at all and managed to basically create her own methods of waterbending, which, wow—he finds himself unceremoniously surrounded by the pirates and a Fire Nation Admiral. Whoops.

“You see,” the Admiral crows, seven long hours later, “I knew that you, like everyone else, had to have a fatal flaw. I’ve been waiting for you to give up your guard, and now, I’ve found it. Your hubris and arrogance shall be the ruin of you in the end.”

“Okay, the monologue’s getting a little old,” James says, because this guy’s given this same monologue in three different ways already, and being chained to a pole in the middle of the town square isn’t really comfortable at all. 

The Admiral sneers. “The last thing anyone will ever hear you say is my name, Avatar. I am Admiral Malfoy, and you _will_ obey my orders. You see, when I bring you back to the Fire Lord, you’ll be in your own room forever, at the top of a tower. No one will hear you scream—it will be soundproofed, of course. And I—I will be renowned throughout the lands—”

“Seriously, can you get on with it?” He has a feeling that taunting a group of armed pirates and an admiral isn’t the best idea, but oh well. There’s earth everywhere—if he can _just_ get his hands out of this chain—

“Lily!” he cries. Seeing her run through the alleyway, he could almost cry with relief. Mere moments later, the pirates and the admiral are being thrown back by a huge wave of water gushing from a fountain, and Lily’s running towards him, slicing cleanly through the chains with a sword.

“You’re an idiot,” she says, sighing. “What made you think it was a good idea to waterbend in the middle of the night?”

James shrugs. “Does it really matter now? What’s done is done, right?” He looks at her hopefully, and Lily rolls her eyes. 

“We’ve got to find a way to get out of here,” she says. “Now come on, help me out.”

He nods, and they step forward, back-to-back. He sinks three of the pirates, who are scrambling to their feet, into the ground, trapping them in the hard earth, while Lily freezes four more with the water from the fountain. They manage to subdue a good third of the pirates, but—there’s just so many of them, and Malfoy, the infuriating asshole he is, is unfairly good at firebending. They’re outnumbered, and James searches for an escape route, anywhere they can go—

And then, because this day _still_ isn’t exciting enough, Prince Sirius shows up.

It’s the first time he’s ever seen the prince in person and not on a poster. His hair looks different—in the posters, it was up in a high, thin ponytail, the traditional hairstyle of the Fire Nation, but now, it hangs loosely down to his shoulders in one dark mass. And there’s the scar, on the left side of his face. James gulps, and by his side, he can feel Lily freeze up as well. Honestly, they’ve been lucky so far—none of the pirates are benders, as far as he can tell, and even with Malfoy’s power, at least he’s just one person. With another firebender on Malfoy’s side, though—well, he and Lily are, in short, screwed.

But then the extraordinary thing happens. Though Sirius sends a blast of fire towards them, instead of the fireball hitting James or Lily, it almost catches Malfoy in the face instead. It could just be an accident, but there’s almost something deliberate about it. 

For a moment, James catches the prince’s eyes, and the look on his face is clear— _get out of here._

“Maybe he thinks Malfoy’s the Avatar?” James whispers too loudly. Even more than twenty meters away, he can see the obvious disgust in the prince’s eyes, and _okay,_ it was just a theory, you know? 

“We can’t trust him,” Lily says into his ear. “Don’t listen to anything he says—he’s the _Fire Prince._ He’s not here to help us.”

Sirius envelopes the still-standing pirates with a wall of blazing fire, and James looks at Lily dubiously. “It sure doesn’t look like he’s trying to hurt us.”

“James, no matter what, we still need to get out of here. Do you have the whistle?” 

James nods, and he quickly pulls the whistle shaped like a flying bison out of his pocket and blows into it. Thankfully, just a moment later, Prongs is touching down, knocking over five more pirates in the process. James beams. 

They scramble on top of Prongs, and James looks at Sirius, who’s holding off three pirates at once. “Do you think—”

“Prongs, yip yip!” Lily shouts, and they’re up in the air. “James, I don’t know _what_ Prince Sirius was doing, but like I said, he’s not trying to help us. Most likely, he just wants the credit for capturing you himself and doesn’t trust the pirates. Or maybe he just has _terrible_ aim. If he’s on anyone’s side, it’s Malfoy’s, not ours.”

“But he—”

“No, James. He was handling it fine himself anyway. No pirate would risk hurting the son of the Fire Lord. He’ll get out fine, but we wouldn’t have.”

“Fine,” James sighs, dropping the topic. For some reason, though, he spends a good half of the next day hoping that Prince Sirius is fine.

**vii. an interlude**

Regulus _loves_ this town. Happily, he munches on the tea cake and sips his tea, basking in the warmth of the small tea shop. He loves his brother too—he doesn’t even know how Sirius managed to find this town again, but he’s grateful for it. The last time they were here was a whole year ago, and they’d stayed far too briefly for his liking. 

He gazes out the window. There’s a cabbage seller, whistling as he pulls his cart. There’s an elderly couple, walking along slowly. There’s his brother—wait, what? 

His brother is fighting off a group of pirates and yelling at a man who looks suspiciously like Admiral Malfoy, one of his father’s favored generals. Maybe Regulus should go out and see what’s happening.

“More tea, Prince Regulus?”

On second thought, he’ll finish his tea first. 

An hour later, his brother walks into the tea shop, visibly sweating with soot stains covering his robes. “I am _never_ trying to help that _idiotic_ Avatar and his girlfriend again,” Sirius grumbles. “Fuck pirates, fuck the Avatar, and seriously, _fuck_ Malfoy. But thank Agni for him being an idiot. _Bad aim_. I can’t believe he fell for that.” Apparently done with his rant, he then steals a tea cake from Regulus’s plate, and Regulus squawks loudly in protest. 

“Wait, what do you mean _help_ the Avatar?” Regulus asks, seconds later, but Sirius just ignores him, swallowing down another bite of tea cake. 

**viii. the red spirit**

Lily’s sick, and saying that James is panicked would be an understatement.

He barely knows how it happened. One day she was fine, and then they walked ten miles during a thunderstorm, and then she was sick.

Okay, it actually does make sense, if you look at it that way.

“Cute,” she giggles, poking his cheek, and James gulps. If she’s calling him cute, something is _definitely_ wrong. “Handsome.”

Okay, yep, she’s delirious. 

He paces around the cave they’re staying in. Lily’s wearing her warmest cloak and is tucked into her sleeping bag, a blanket on top as well, but she still seems to be shivering, and her forehead is burning. He needs food and medicine, more than anything else. 

Wormtail bounces up to him, and he pats the flying lemur on his head. “Wormy, do you think you could get some food for us? Something cold, preferably, to help Lily.” He tries to gesture with his hands, and Wormy nods—well, as best as a flying lemur can nod, anyway. James grins. “Good Wormy.”

He spends the next hour worrying over Lily, pressing a cold compress soaked with water to her forehead. He can’t risk taking her to a doctor in town, especially now that the Fire Nation definitely knows what he and Lily look like. They’d just as likely be arrested as helped. 

It doesn’t get any better when Wormtail finally returns. Instead of food, he’s brought back what looks to be an expensive wristwatch. It’ll be helpful when they can sell it, but right now, it’s about as useful as a rock.

Actually, even a rock would probably be more useful. 

Then, suddenly, it comes to him. He recognizes the mountain in the distance—at the last town they docked in, one old woman had told him about a healer who lived in the green mountains. That mountain looks pretty green to him. 

“I’ll come back soon, Lily,” he whispers. Lily mumbles incoherently, turning over in her sleep, and James smiles at her softly. “Don’t worry.”

He bounds out of the cave, running as fast as he can. If he conjures up a dust cyclone to bring him to the top of the mountain faster, well, no one saw him, right? It’ll be fine.

Finally, he reaches the top of the mountain, panting. He rushes inside the building to find an old woman with long white hair, walking slowly as she waters plants.

“Hi,” he breaths. “My friend is super sick—like, really, really sick—and I need medicine for her. I think she has a fever, and she’s coughing too. Do you have any—”

“Shh,” the woman whispers. “Let yourself connect with the elements, and all will be revealed.”

“Okay, I’m the _Avatar._ I’m the _most_ connected with the elements. Anyway! Do you have any advice for my sick friend? Please?”

“Frogs,” the woman says sagely. “She will suck on frozen wood frogs, for only then can she be well. You may find them in the swamp at the base of this mountain. But take care that the frogs don’t thaw, because then they’ll be useless. Useless!”

James looks at the woman dubiously. She smiles. Her mouth _definitely_ has too many teeth. “Okay?” And then, studying her face, “Oh man, you don’t have a clue what you’re doing.”

The woman just smiles back, and James groans. The problem is, he doesn’t actually have any other ideas besides having Lily suck on frozen frogs, as unpleasant and frankly disturbing as that idea is. “Right. Frozen frogs it is.”

He grumbles as he wades through the swamp, which is definitely unsanitary and probably the spawn point for multiple infectious diseases. Finally, he sees a frog, and he traps it in a circle of earth quickly, smiling. He tucks the frog into his pocket. For good measure, he scoops another one up too, and breathes a sigh of relief at his good fortune. Now, he can go back to Lily, and she’ll be fine, and—

And he’s been pinned to a tree by archers. Wonderful.

Surprisingly, being hung from chains on all fours isn’t as uncomfortable as it could be. It would almost be kind of fun, if he wasn’t in a life-and-death situation and being held captive by Admiral Malfoy. Again. He really needs to get better at evasion tactics. Briefly, he wonders if there’s a way he could just turn invisible. That would solve a good 50% of his problems. 

And now Malfoy’s monologuing. Again.

“You see, Avatar—”

“Okay, like I’ve told you five times already, my name is _James.”_

“You _see,_ Avatar, you seem to be under the impression that I’m here to kill you. No, no.” Here, Malfoy laughs, and James wonders why his life is just so _uniquely_ terrible. “No, Avatar, I’m going to keep you alive. If you die, things will only get even more complicated. I can’t afford to let the Avatar cycle continue, after all. No, I’ll bring you to the brink of death, so much that you wish you _could_ be dead, but you’ll be alive. Always alive, at the end.”

“Wow, you’re so very kind,” James simpers. 

Malfoy sneers at him. “No one is coming to help you, Avatar. No one can penetrate the walls of this fortress. Not even your little waterbender girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Wait, why did he say that? He’d love for Lily to be his girlfriend. “I mean—”

Malfoy laughs cruelly again. He strides out of the room, shutting the door behind him harshly.

James looks around the dimly lit room. There’s no earth to be found, but there _is_ air. If he could just get out of these cuffs, maybe he would have a chance. And then he feels the frogs start to wriggle in the pocket of his robes, and he groans again. Just wonderful.

He struggles against the cuffs again, wincing as they bruise his skin. Then, suddenly, he hears a commotion from outside the room, and he cranes his neck to hear.

It’s unmistakably a fight—he can hear the clashing of swords and the shouts of soldiers. Maybe Malfoy’s army has finally mutinied. He’d deserve it. 

Then, he hears the turning of the lock to the door, and he swallows hard. He prays that it’s not Malfoy again. 

Slowly, the door opens, revealing a figure wearing a red mask that looks almost like a lion, the mouth open in a roar. It’s kind of terrifying, to be honest. And that’s not even to mention the two swords the figure is holding, sharp and deadly. 

He stifles a gasp when the figure brings down the swords, but instead of feeling pain rush throughout his body, he falls to the ground as his restraints are cut. 

“Who are you? And thank you—” James starts, but the figure shushes him, beckoning James to the door. James follows the figure as they quietly creep through the doorway, though he can’t help but protest when the now-thawed frogs bounce out of his pocket. “Hey, guys, come on! Lily needs to suck on you guys to get healthy, you know.”

“Shut up,” the figure hisses in a low voice. “Do you _want_ to be recaptured?”

Mutely, James shakes his head. Something about the figure’s clear distaste for this situation is vaguely familiar, but he doesn’t have much time to worry about that as they creep out of the fortress through the ground and begin to climb up the tall wall surrounding it with a rope. 

And then the alarm sounds, blaring, terrifyingly loud, and alerting every single soldier in the vicinity of the wall to their presence. He feels them falling before he even sees the guard who severed the rope. 

“FIND THE AVATAR!” he hears Malfoy bellow, and inwardly, he sighs, because that just _had_ to happen now too, didn’t it.

The ensuing battle can be described as nothing short of chaotic. He manages to throw back a good amount of Fire Nation soldiers, and the masked figure shields him from the soldiers when he can. They make a good team, James realizes, this random red-masked guy and him. He wonders what Lily would think if he brought back the figure in the morning— _hey Lily, I made a new friend! I don’t know what his name is, but he saved me from a lifetime of torture at the hands of Malfoy, so he seems to be pretty all right._

They manage to almost scale the wall for a second time, this time with bamboo letters, but unfortunately, once again, a soldier manages to stop them. This time, James realizes, they’re completely surrounded by firebenders, and he gulps. And there’s no earth around him at all, of course. Even the ground is metal. 

“Stop!” he hears Malfoy call. “Do not harm the Avatar. I want him _alive,_ do you hear me?” And then he feels the two swords at his throat.

Okay, maybe he shouldn’t bring this new friend back to Lily.

Slowly, with the swords still at his throat—vaguely familiar situations again—he and the masked figure back away. They’re almost at the gates—finally!—when the masked figure crumples to the ground. There’s no time to dwell on that, though—he can hear the firebenders running behind him and Malfoy’s increasingly deranged shouts, so the moment they’re finally clear of the gates, him dragging the masked figure behind him, James sends up an enormous wall of earth. That’ll take them a while to get past, hopefully. 

He pulls the masked figure up and onto his back as he runs, as far away from the fortress as possible. Finally, panting, he stops in a forest, tugging both himself and the figure up into a tree.

“Er—hi,” James starts awkwardly. “I’m going to remove your mask now, if that’s okay, just to, you know, check for internal injuries and all that. Wait, that doesn’t make sense. Facial injuries, I meant—if it’s okay with you, of course.”

The masked figure gives no reply. Oh, right, he’s unconscious. 

He’ll take that as a yes, then. Slowly, James peels back the mask from the figure. He doesn’t even have time to stifle the gasp.

It’s Prince Sirius. Again.

“Why do you keep saving me?” James asks softly. Prince Sirius, of course, gives no reply. “Well, thank you for doing it, even if I don’t know _why_ you’re doing it. I didn’t get the chance to tell you thank you last time you saved us—because you _were_ saving us, weren’t you—so thank you for that too. You really got me and Lily out of a tight spot there.”

“I didn’t do it for _you,”_ Prince Sirius snaps, suddenly awake. “I just don’t want Malfoy and my fucking bastard of a father to destroy the world.”

James shrugs. “Well, you still saved me.”

“And I don’t want to have to do it again,” Prince Sirius replies. “How do you manage to _keep_ getting captured? Malfoy doesn’t even have two brain cells to rub together. It shouldn’t be that hard to avoid him.”

“No invisibility cloak,” James quips, and Prince Sirius looks at him with contempt.

“Try to not die, okay? It really shouldn’t be that hard,” Prince Sirius says. He slides down the trunk of the tree, wincing when he lands.

“Do you need a hand back to—uh, wherever you came from?” James asks. “I don’t think you should be walking on that.”

“No,” Prince Sirius says curtly. James watches as he limps out of his sight, disappearing into the trees. He sighs. As far as he can tell, Prince Sirius is an enigma wrapped up in a riddle wrapped up in an impenetrable hedge maze. 

Three more hours later, he’s finally back at the cave, having managed to somehow find two more frozen frogs in the swamp. He gives them to Lily to suck on, and she hums appreciatively in her sleep.

An hour later, she wakes, sputtering. “James, what the _fuck_ is this?”

“Frozen frogs,” he says cheerfully. “Did they help?”

“Why did you think—you know what, I don’t even know if I want to know,” she says, sighing. “I think I’ve been traumatized.”

“But you’re better!”

“Sure.”

**ix. prince remus and master slughorn**

For a while, Lily wasn’t sure if they’d ever make it to the North Pole.

After all, they’ve gotten sidetracked—and almost killed—at least twenty times by now. At the rate they were moving at, they would’ve arrived at the North Pole in three years.

But now they’re actually here. And it’s beautiful. Lily looks down at the thick ice walls surrounding the capital city of the Northern Water Tribe, her mouth open in awe, as they fly over on the back of Prongs. It’s the most wonderful thing she’s ever seen. 

Then, suddenly, Prongs is falling out of the sky, and she realizes that they’re surrounded by spears. This time, though, they’re almost a pleasant sight to see. 

“It’s the Northern Water Tribe!” she exclaims, and by her side, James beams.

As they’re led into the city by the tribesman, Lily gapes unabashedly at the buildings of ice. It looks like something out of a fairy tale, all sparkling snow and sharp edges. Glancing at James, she can see the same look of amazement on his face. Looking forward, she smiles. She has a good feeling about this place.

That feeling is confirmed that night at dinner, when the chief of the tribe makes a toast to her and James. “To our guests, James and Lily,” he says, lifting up his glass. “The Avatar and, as I’ve been told, a wonderful waterbender.” Involuntarily, she blushes at the praise. “And,” the chief continues, “I would be remiss if I didn’t make a toast to my son, Remus, as well. Today is his sixteenth birthday.” 

Looking to the side of the chief, Lily sees a lanky boy with shockingly white hair and a thin scar across the bridge of his nose. He’s dressed in silver-embroidered blue robes that hang off him just a bit too loosely. She gives a small smile and a wave to the boy—Remus—which he returns warmly. 

An enormous snow crab is lifted onto the long table, and the chief inclines his head. “Well? Dig in!” 

James shovels the crab into his mouth quickly, as though he hasn’t eaten anything in days, and Lily rolls her eyes. “I’m sorry for his utter lack of table manners,” she says, smiling at Remus.

“Don’t be,” he replies. “My father will be happy to see that he’s enjoying the food.”

“I’m Lily,” she says. “Wait, you knew that.” And the blush is back on her cheeks.

“I’m Remus, but you knew that too,” he replies, not unkindly. “How’re you liking the city?”

“Well, I’ve only been here for less than a day, but from what I’ve seen, it’s amazing,” she says sincerely. “I’ve never been anywhere with so many waterbenders before. It’s almost surreal.”

“Well, we’re happy to have you here,” Remus says. “And we’ve got tons of waterbenders here—I think my father mentioned that you were searching for a teacher?”

Lily nods, and Remus smiles again. “My father will introduce you to one after dinner—I’m sure Master Slughorn is excited to meet the two of you. He’s probably the best waterbender in all of the Northern Water Tribe.”

“I’m excited to meet him too!” Lily says, returning the smile. By her side, James clears his throat, apparently done demolishing his meal. 

“Remus, why’s your hair white?” he asks loudly, and Lily huffs, rolling her eyes.

“James! You can’t just _ask_ that!” Turning to Remus, she sighs. “I’m sorry again for him. You’d think the _Avatar_ would be more polite.”

“It’s fine,” Remus laughs. “When I was a baby, I was very ill, almost from the day I was born. None of our healers could do a thing, and my parents weren’t sure if I would live past a month. Finally, my father decided to place my fate in the hands of the spirits. He brought me to the Spirit Oasis—I can take you there later, if you want—the most spiritual place in the entire North Pole, and prayed to the Moon Spirit to save my life. The Moon Spirit listened to his prayer and gave me part of its own life to save mine, which turned my hair white.” He smiles shyly. “I know it’s a little weird at first, but you get used to it.”

“I don’t think it’s weird at all,” Lily says. “Your hair is beautiful.”

James coughs loudly, and Lily frowns at him. “Are you feeling sick too, James? You really shouldn’t have eaten the crab so quickly.”

“It’s fine!” James declares loudly. “I’m fine! Anyway, Remus, Lily and I should get to meeting Master Sluggy—”

“Master Slughorn, actually.”

“Whatever his name is! We should go meet him, Lily. Time is of the deepest essence and all that, right? Let’s hop to it!” James stands up quickly, almost knocking over his drink in his haste, and extends a hand to Lily to pull her up. Rolling her eyes, she takes it, before dropping it quickly. 

“Again, I’m _so_ sorry for him,” Lily says to Remus.

“Yes, I’m such a burden, aren’t I?” James grumbles.

“James, you know I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant you should be more polite to our hosts. You’re not a burden at all.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, but he looks slightly cheerier. 

Master Slughorn turns out to be a cheerful middle-aged man with a large mustache and an echoing laugh. Just as Remus had said, the Waterbending Master smiles widely and excitedly when James asks him to teach them waterbending. 

“Of course, of course!” Slughorn exclaims. “We’ll start tomorrow morning—eight o’clock sharp, and don’t be late!”

That night, Lily can barely sleep, out of sheer excitement. The last time anyone besides a scroll had tried to teach her waterbending had been more than half a year ago, back when Sev was more concerned with helping her learn than railing against Prince Sirius and spreading conspiracy theories about the Avatar. She smiles wistfully at the memory—Sev correcting her stance, teaching her to shoot spikes of ice in the same way he shot spheres of fire out of his own hands. 

In the morning, she has to drag James bodily out of bed, but somehow, they make it to Master Slughorn’s training grounds on time. 

“Why don’t you show me what you know first?” Slughorn suggests. “First the Avatar, then Lily?”

James grins, and he sends up a great tidal wave of water out of the ice, bringing it up to the sky and then back down. It crashes with a great force, but Slughorn just hums. “Interesting. Lily?”

She takes a deep breath and thinks of Sev, thinks of the waterbending scrolls, thinks of everything she’s tried to teach James in the past few months. Then, she brings up long lashes of water that quickly crystallize into whips of ice, forming spikes as they land back onto the ground. She grins, and whirling around, she sees a matching smile on Slughorn’s face. 

“Wonderful, Lily!” he applauds. “You know, I don’t think I’ve actually ever seen that move before. Where did you learn it?”

“I kind of just, uh, figured it out,” Lily says, suddenly bashful. “It’s not from a scroll or anything. Down at the South Pole, I couldn’t really learn waterbending from another waterbender, so my friend who was a firebender taught me instead. Really, we just learned from each other.”

“Very ingenious,” Slughorn says approvingly. “Lily, why don’t you show me something else?”

Over the next eight hours, Lily demonstrates to Slughorn every trick she’s learned and read about, and almost every time, he claps enthusiastically afterwards, giving her small corrections and tips to improve her focus. It might just be the best day of her life.

That is, until she realizes that James looks increasingly tired and frustrated. “I just don’t get it,” he sighs. “None of this is working for me at all.”

“Well, James, not everyone can take to waterbending as easily as Lily,” Slughorn chuckles. This, of course, is basically the worst thing he could have said, and a moment later, James has a look of despair on his face.

“How can I be the Avatar if I can’t waterbend?” he bemoans, after Slughorn’s dismissed them for the day and they’re walking back to their lodgings with Remus. 

“Well, you _can_ waterbend,” Lily says, trying to cheer him up.

“But I can’t do anything advanced,” he says. “I can’t do any of the things that he taught you to do today. It’s like—I don’t know. I know how it’s supposed to work, but I can’t see how it does, you know? Everything’s all mixed-up in my head, and I can’t separate it.”

Remus looks thoughtful. “James, how have you been learning waterbending before this?”

“Er, from scrolls, mostly,” James says. 

“That might be the problem then,” Remus says. “You’re used to seeing the moves illustrated first and then trying them out.”

James grunts. “Maybe.”

“I can take you to my father’s library,” Remus continues. “He should have waterbending scrolls there—we’d be happy to let the Avatar borrow them.”

James doesn’t say anything, so Lily nudges him, but all he does is let out another grunt. Rolling her eyes, she smiles. “He’d love to.”

“Great!” Remus says cheerily. “I can bring him to the library after dinner.”

She waves goodbye to Remus as they go their separate ways, still smiling. The moment Remus disappears from their sight, she nudges James again. “Why are you being so rude to him? He’s been nothing but kind to us.”

“What’s so great about him anyway?” James exclaims. “So what, he’s a literal prince, and he’s handsome, and he’s probably stinking rich, and the Moon Spirit gave him life or _whatever,_ but I’m the _Avatar._ I’m the _bridge_ between humans and the Spirit World! I’m the most spiritual person alive!”

“Careful, James, or you might get a big head there,” Lily says sarcastically. “And I _know_ you’re the Avatar. What’re you going on about?”

“Nothing,” James says sullenly. He kicks a ball of snow into the nearest canal. 

Suddenly, a thought occurs to Lily. It’s as clear as day, honestly—she can’t believe she didn’t see it before. “James, are you _jealous?”_

“What?” James laughs nervously. “What would I be jealous of? His fluffy hair and ridiculously nice smile? No way!” 

“Oh, James, I get it now,” Lily says sympathetically. “I know you’ve been having a tough time with the Avatar State, and you’re still nervous about what Avatar Dumbledore told you when you visited the Spirit World, and today’s waterbending lesson was—well, it wasn’t the best. Look, just because Remus has part of the Moon Spirit in him doesn’t mean he’s more suited to the role of the Avatar than you are. You have such a big heart, James—you’ve already helped so many people!—and you’re amazing at earthbending and airbending. You can do this, James. I believe in you.” She takes his hand and squeezes it for good measure. 

“Yeah,” James says slowly. “Yeah, that’s definitely it. I’ve been jealous of Remus because I’m scared of not being a good enough Avatar. Thanks for the pep talk, Lily.” 

She smiles at him, relieved, and finally, he gives her a genuine smile back.

That night, when James and Remus return from the library, waterbending scrolls in hand, both of them are laughing, talking quietly to each other like they’re old friends. When James manages to create and control multiple water whips in their lesson with Master Slughorn the next morning, Lily smiles broadly, proud of how far her friend has come. 

The next few days are full of laughter, cheer, and engaging lessons.

Then, of course, the Fire Nation attacks. Again.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed this! i love a:tla a lot, and i had a lot of fun fusing these two universes together.
> 
> if you liked this fic, feel free to check out my others, especially my current two wips, sirius and harry go to white castle, a sirius raises harry au, and a moony has spawned in the server, a modern wolfstar au!
> 
> kudos + comments fuel me! <3


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